One thing we all do with fighters is look at their records. I don't mean the who, when, where and how but the raw numbers, the wins, losses, draws and KO's. For some foolish reason we repeatedly think that these numbers tells us about a fighter, we think a fighter with a lot of wins is automatically great and a fighter with a number of losses is bad. We think that a fighter who has a lot of KO's is a power puncher and a go with a lesser number of KO's is feather fisted.

Usually these numbers do tell us a lot, of course they do, but all too often they are misleading and tell us a lot, lot less than we may think and funnily enough we see this coming back to bite us in previews, in general articles and as fans. It's funny that no matter how many times we see an upset we still fail to spot how these records are so misleading and, more often than not, it can make us look rather silly and completely blow apart our predictions.

There is no country out there with such misleading records as the Philippines. The country has numerous talented fighters with less than impressive records whilst other fighters have records that are more padded than anything else. These two groups make up the "misleading Filipinos" a huge group of fighters.

"Better than they are"The key group, for me, are those that are better than their record indicates. These are the fighters who have suffered a lot of losses though are genuinely talented fighters capable of giving more established foes a very tough test, if not scoring a major upset here and there.

One of the most obvious examples is the WBC ranked Flyweight Rey Megrino (21-20-3, 17). If you just looked at Megrino's "numbers" you'd assume he was rubbish, he was never going to be much more than a journeyman and in fact he's never score any sort of win of note. The truth however is much different to what you'd assume.

Megrino turned professional back in 2005 aged just 19. On his debut he lost to Roderick Agong and after 3 fights he was 1-2, after 15 fights he was an appalling 6-8-1. If that happened anywhere else on the planet we'd write a fighter off as a lost cause, a man likely to be little more than a domestic journeyman.

What we have to remember however is that Megrino, at the point, was taking fights on a week or so's notice, and often against more experienced foes or those who were viewed as either going places or already having gone places, such as Kaichon Sor Vorapin, Fernando Lumacad and Pongsaklek Wonjongkam.

Things continued to be relative poor for Megrino for another few years as he record fell to 12-15-2 after 29 fights and 15-20-3 after 38. Most would have accepted their place in the sport as being nothing more than a domestic level fighter though Megrino knew he had thunderous power, when he was winning he was often winning by KO.

Amazingly though Megrino wasn't just losing to domestic scrubs but was actually losing to very good fighters like Sonny Boy Jaro, Nawaphon Por Chokchai, and Pungluang Sor Singyu. Those losses were marking up his record but few were looking at his actual performances which were often much better than one would suspect of someone with his record with the loss to Nawaphon being a narrow decision loss in Thailand.

Surprisingly Megrino has stayed with the sport and has won his last 6 bouts scoring genuinely notable victories over Pongsaklek Wonjongkam, Myung Ho Lee and, the then unbeaten, Ernesto Saulong.

Just looking at his record it may be amazing to consider this but Megrino has beaten numerous world class opponents such as Denver Cuello, Ratanapol Sor Vorapin and Wonjongkam. On the opposite side he has lost to Wonjongkam, Paipharob Kokietgym, Denkaosan Kokietgym, Tepparith Kokietgym and Sonny Boy Jaro, all of whom have held world titles.

Currently ranked #9 by the WBC Megrino has a real chance to fight for a world title and at just 28 years old it's very likely he has the time to wait for that opportunity.

Whilst Megrino is arguably the best example of a Filipino fighter having a misleading record he's not the only one, and not even the only notable one. Another, that made the headlines this year, is Rey Loreto (18-13, 10) who debuted at just 17 years old with 4 straight loss.

In the past year Loreto has scored back-to-back victories over former world champions in the form of Pornsawan Porpramook and Nkosinathi Joyi. Those victories have turned Loreto from unknown journeyman to world ranked title contender who is seen as being a top 15 fighter by the IBF, WBA and WBC.

Another is the Filipino "Cinderella man" Gerpaul Valero (17-14-3, 11), pictured, who has managed to turn around from 5-13-3 start to becoming a top 30 Flyweight, according to the IWBR and Boxrec. Valero, like Megrino and Loreto, has scored a major upset in recent fights, out pointing former WBC and Linear Flyweight champion Sonny Boy Jaro. The victory over Jaro might be the only "stand out" win on Valero's record but it is a major one and one that could well help him move towards a genuine world ranking.

One final example of a "better than they look" record that we'd like to mention is Richard Pumicpic (14-6-2, 4) who is best known for 2 bouts he fought in Japan. The first of those saw him fighting to a draw with Yohei Tobe, who has since gone on to claim the Japanese Super Flyweight title. At the time of the Tobe bout Pumicpic was 11-5-1 with his most notable wins being his preceding bouts which saw him beating Ratchasak Kokietgym and Rex Olisa. More recently Pumicpic returned to Japan and gave the very highly regarded Ryosuke Iwasa a very tough fight when Iwasa narrowly retained his OPBF Bantamweight title.

Although currently unranked we are certain that Pumicpic will, one day, make a mark on the world stage.

"Worse than they are"Whilst many fighters from the Philippines are better than their records indicate there are also some with records that make them look significantly better than they are.

One example of that is Lorenzo Villanueva (25-1-0-1, 22), pictured, who looks like a monster on paper though hasn't actually beaten a fighter of note. In fact from his 27 professional bouts his most significant win is probably his 10 round decision over the incredibly tough Jamie Barcelona. In his 27 fights Villanueva has stepped up once and was stopped in a thrilling contest by Duad Cino Yordan in just 2 rounds.

Talking about Villanueva his name sake Arthur Villanueva (25-0, 14) is also not as good as his record indicates, though he is a capable fighter. "King" Arthur isn't as good as his record indicates and in fact he has been fortunate to keep his unbeaten record in fact with very narrow wins over Mark Anthony Geraldo, Jeffrey Cera, Taiki Eto and Fernando Aguilar. Whilst he does have good wins over Megrino and Marco Demecillo there is enough reason to be suspicious about whether or not he should really be 24-0 or not.

One final fighter that I want to mention is Lightweight prospect Roskie Cristobal (7-0, 7). On paper Cristobal looks like a great prospect, and from looking at him as a physical specimen he does look a bit like one to keep an eye on. He's a 5'10" Lightweight who, from his record, would look like he has power and real potential. Unfortunately we have no idea how good he is due to his competition which saw far has been awful. Between his 7 opponents they have had a combined record of 3-21-0, with 3 debutants and 2 other win-less fighters. It's a shame that such an interesting prospect is being matched this lightly but it does appear that either his team wants to protect him or they know he's going to be a long term project, sadly however we can't imagine he's learning much from his current bouts and they aren't helping him in the long term.

Of course not every Filipino has a misleading record. Most are, like fighters from other countries, spot on and accurate. There is no doubting, for example, Donnie Nietes who has earned his very good record, in fact you could make a solid argument for him being undefeated, or Genesis Servania, pictured, who has really developed into a sensational young fighter.

What it comes down to however is a number of things.

Firstly the fighter themselves, some are naturally blessed with talent that they work on to improve and thus pick up the wins in their early fights.

Secondly the promotional situation of the fighter. Some are lucky that their promotional backer can "help" them get the wins in close fights, as seen in the case Arthur Villanueva who has probably escaped with a win or two due to his relationship with ALA gym.

Thirdly is the opposition. In the case of Megrino this has worked against him in regards to his record, a lot, whilst in the case of Cristobal his level of competition has certainly helped bolster his record even though it is seriously padded.

Finally, and maybe most importantly, is the attitude of a fighter. Someone with a record like Megrino could have given up but he believed in himself, he believed he could do something in this sport and will continue to try and reach the top. We've seen a lot of cases where a fighter goes unbeaten for a long time then lose and give up mentally, for example Naseem Hamed. We're not going to suggest that if "King" Arthur or Cristobal lost they'd leave the sport but for a fighter to lose a lot and continue on with the sport is impressive and for that I have the utmost respect for the likes of Loreto, Valero, Pumicpic and Megrino all of whom are a credit to the sport and the perfect examples of a fighters mentality.

Thinking Out East

With this site being pretty successful so far we've decided to open up about our own views and start what could be considered effectively an editorial style opinion column dubbed "Thinking Out East" (T.O.E).

T.O.E is just a collection of our thoughts, rambles and general things related to boxing in the East.